(Spec help please) PC that will play minecraft for under £200. Is it possibe?

Dr_Doom · 17 Oct 2013 at 19:24

My niece's birthday is a week away the only thing she has asked for is a desktop pc that will play minecraft. My sister is having a meltdown trying to find something with a sub £200 budget so I said i'd help. I've never played minecraft and I've never done a low budget build so i'm a bit stuck. Any help would be greatly appreciated

(if it is even possible)

Things I've already got so don't need to buy;
Hard Drive
Monitor
Keyboard & Mouse
optical drive

Parts i'd need;
Motherboard, processor, Ram
Case
PSU
Graphics card

Thanks.

swiftmetal · 17 Oct 2013 at 19:35

This is the best that I can do.

YOUR BASKET
1 x AMD A6-6400K 3.90GHz (Socket FM2) APU Richland Dual Core Processor (AD640KOKHLBOX) £59.99
1 x MSI A55M-E33 AMD A55 Chipset (Socket FM2) DDR3 Micro ATX Motherboard £40.99
1 x Corsair Builder Series CX 430W V2 '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply (CP-9020046-UK) £39.95
1 x TeamGroup Elite 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C11 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (TED34GM1600HC11DC01) £32.99
1 x Xigmatek Asgard III Gaming Case - Black £27.95
Total : £215.96 (includes shipping : £11.75).

it has the apu so you dont need a ghrapics card and 4 gb of ram and everything is very cheap and should be enough to play minecraft.

Mark719 · 17 Oct 2013 at 21:02

My attempt, it is over sorry... but might give you a few ideas.

YOUR BASKET
1 x MSI HD 7750 2048MB GDDR3 PCI-Express Graphics Card £61.99
1 x Intel Pentium G3420 3.20GHz (Haswell) Socket LGA1150 Processor - Retail £59.99
1 x MSI B85M-P33 Intel B85 (Socket 1150) DDR3 Micro ATX Motherboard £55.99
1 x Aerocool Qs-200 Lite Midi Tower Case - Black £34.99
1 x Antec VP350P 350W '80 Plus' Continuous Power Supply £32.99
1 x TeamGroup Elite 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C11 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (TED34GM1600HC11DC01) £32.99
Total : £291.54 (includes shipping : £10.50).

From what I know, Minecraft because it uses Java, it is very RAM heavy, this may be wrong, you might be ok with good/more ram without a graphics card.

Rroff · 17 Oct 2013 at 21:04

^^ I haven't kept up with Minecraft in awhile but it certainly used to be pretty RAM heavy back when I did.

Mark719 · 17 Oct 2013 at 21:06

Rroff said:
^^ I haven't kept up with Minecraft in awhile but it certainly used to be pretty RAM heavy back when I did.

So maybe I am right in saying, not much need for a good graphics card or even one at all, and just a better CPU and RAM?

Dr_Doom · 17 Oct 2013 at 21:16

Thanks for all the help guys, that's great info. My sister’s main concern is that she'll spend a lot of money on this pc and then it won't actually play the game. I've read online that minecraft's minimum requirements are 2GB of ram and they recommend 4GB so looks like you're right about the ram.

Mark719 · 17 Oct 2013 at 21:42

Dr_Doom said:
Thanks for all the help guys, that's great info. My sister’s main concern is that she'll spend a lot of money on this pc and then it won't actually play the game. I've read online that minecraft's minimum requirements are 2GB of ram and they recommend 4GB so looks like you're right about the ram.

Don't take my word for it, but maybe you could get a even cheaper GPU in my build above or not even have one and maybe 4GB better ram or even 8, but 8 may be a little over kill.

Little question, does the person playing Minecraft play the game alone (vanilla) or with mods installed or High resolution Texture packs, reason I'm asking is the amount of ram and CPU needed increases even more if using either of them.

Dr_Doom · 17 Oct 2013 at 21:57

Mark719 said:
Little question, does the person playing Minecraft play the game alone (vanilla) or with mods installed or High resolution Texture packs, reason I'm asking is the amount of ram and CPU needed increases even more if using either of them.

It'll be her 11th birthday this time & her first PC so there won't be any game mods etc just plain old minecraft. I'm not too far from overclockers so picking the parts up won't be a problem & it'll save on postage.